Pet

by Akwaeke Emezi

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

“[A] beautiful, genre-expanding debut. . . . Pet is a nesting doll of creative possibilities.” —The New York Times

“Like [Madeleine] L’Engle, Akwaeke Emezi asks questions of good and evil and agency, all wrapped up in the terrifying and glorious spectacle of fantastical theology.” —NPR

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and a drop of Jam’s blood, she must reconsider what she’s been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption’s house. Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth, and the answer to the question–How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?

Acclaimed novelist Akwaeke Emezi makes their riveting and timely young adult debut with a book that asks difficult questions about what choices you can make when the society around you is in denial.

Ages 12 and up
Paperback | 208 pages | Knopf Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition | 2021

Akwaeke Emezi is an honoree on the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” list, a long-list nominee for the Carnegie Medal of Excellence, and a short-list nominee for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. They continue to receive accolades for their adult debut, Freshwater, and their sophomore adult novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, which was an instant New York Times bestseller. Born in Umuhai and raised in Aba, Nigeria, Akwaeke holds two degrees, including an MPA from New York University, and lives in liminal spaces.